ietf-openpgp
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Re: NIST publishes new DSA draft

2006-03-20 13:16:10

Jon Callas wrote:

I think we ought to keep it with the same algorithm number.

I'm happy to put in SHA-224 (meaning it's trivial work), but I don't like it, myself. The reason is that SHA-224 is really a truncated SHA-256. Thus, it has no advantages over SHA-256 except being smaller by 32-bits with 112 bits of security. The reason it exists at all is for crypto-balance with 2-key 3DES (which is not TDEA), which we don't allow at all. I don't think we should have it as it goes against our principles of wanting a minimum of 128-bits of security in OpenPGP. (Yes, yes, I know that SHA-1 doesn't meet this either, but until SHA-256, we didn't have many options. That doesn't mean the principle is wrong; we *have* options.)

In general I'd agree that the less algorithms/lengths
the better.  I'd certainly be keen to drop SHA-224 if
there is no good reason for it.

iang